Cooling towers



6, 1968 D. B. SPALDING ETAL 3,395,902

COOLING TOWERS 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Nov. 23 1964 Wm M S 2 mg A E Aug. 6, 1968 Filed Nov. 23

D. B. SPALDING ETA'L COOLING TOWERS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 ATTORNEY United States Patent .COOLING TOWERS Dudley Brian Spalding, London, and John Roy Singham, Richmond, Surrey, England, assignors to William Stanley Lovely, London, England Filed Nov. 23, 1964, Ser. No. 413,021 2 Claims. (Cl. 261112) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A cooling tower of circular form has packing support structure including concentric rings of beams. The packing comprises two layers of superposed vertically arranged sheets and the sheets of the one layer are skewed, preferably at an angle of 30, to one another.

This invention relates to cooling towers, for example, towers having the form of a circular structure of concrete or the like, containing within its interior a multiplicity of generally upright sheets over which warm water flows downwardly and is cooled by the exposure of a large surface area of this water to a current of atmospheric air. Such cooling towers are extensively used in conjunction with electricity generating plants.

More particularly the invention relates to the arrangement of two or more pairs of such generally upright sheets.

In a two layer arrangement, when the sheets of the lower layer lie at right angles to a set of support beams, which may be parallel to each other, or may lie on concentric circles, the sheets of the upper layer may be similarly arranged, only if these upper sheets are separately supported, since otherwise, the upper sheets would slip between the lower sheets. To avoid the use of separate supports for each layer, it has therefore been previously proposed to arrange the upper sheets so that they lie at right angles to those of the lower layer. Whilst this is satisfactory when the support beams are all parallel to one another, it is not satisfactory when they collectively form concentric circles, for in the latter case it is impossible to cover the required area with sheets which are of uniform size.

According to the present invention, there is provided a cooling tower for liquids comprising layers of substantially upright sheets, and a supporting structure on which one layer of the sheets rests, the sheets of the next adjacent layer thereabove resting on and being skewed in relation to the sheets of said one layer.

This arrangement enables one layer of sheets tobe supported directly by the layer below, and thus intermediate supports between the layers for preventing sheets in one layer slipping between the sheets of the lower layer are avoided. Of course, the support beam of the lower layer is also substantially parallel to the said surfaces containing the vertical edges of the sheets. The arrangement also achieves substantially complete coverage of the packed area. Further according to the invention there is provided a cooling tower for cooling water derived from an electricity generating plant, comprising a packing over which the water can flow, an outer shell surrounding the packing and a support structure for the packing, the said packing including two layers of generally vertically extending sheets, of which the sheets of the lower layer rest on the support structure and the sheets of the other layer rest on the sheets of the lower layer, the upright edges of one layer of sheets lying in an imaginary cylindrical surface Which is co-incident with a corresponding imaginary cylindrical surface of sheets in the adjacent layer, and the sheets in the lower layer being skewed in relation to the sheets of the other layer.

Preferably, the sheets in the one layer are inclined to 3,395,9fi2 Patented Aug. 6, 1968 the surface containing their vertical edges at an angle which differs from a right-angle by a small amount, for example 15. The sheets in the next adjacent layer are inclined at the same angle to the surface containing their vertical edges but the angle of inclination is in the opposite sense.

An embodiment of a cooling tower in accordance with the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a plan view of a sector of the cooling tower;

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of a quadrant of the cooling tower with certain parts omitted; and

FIGURE 3 is a section on the line III-III of FIG- URE 2.

Referring now to the drawings the cooling tower, which has an outer shell 1 of conventional construction, includes support structure, which serves to support two layers 2, 3 of corrugated asbestos-cement sheets. Each sheet lies in a substantially vertical plane and the outer vertical edges of the sheets of the upper layer 2 lie on a cylindrical surface indicated by a chain line 4 (FIGURE 1). The inner vertical edges of the sheets of the upper layer lie on a cylindrical surface indicated by a chain line 5 and the substantially vertical edges of the lower layer 3 also lie respectively on the surfaces 4 and 5. Each sheet of the upper layer 1 is inclined by an angle of approximately 15 to the radial plane passing through the inner vertical edge and each sheet of the lower layer is inclined to the radial plane passing through the inner vertical edge by an angle of approximately 15 but in the opposite sense to the upper layer. The sheets of both layers are arranged in packs and all sheets of any given pack lie parallel to one another. For this reason, the angle of inclination to the radial plane of each sheet of a pack varies from the nominal angle stated by an amount which depends on the spacings of the sheets and the diameter of the cooling tower.

In each layer, the sheets are arranged to form concentric rings, the sheets in each ring of the lower layer 3 being supported at their ends by a radially outer ring of beams 6 and by a concentric radially inner ring of beams 7, which in turn are supported on an outer annular row of columns 8 and an inner annular row of columns 9.

Although the term ring has been used to describe the disposition of beams 6 and 7, this does not infer that the individual beams are arcuate. Strictly, the beams form a polygon, which because of the large number employed approximates to a circle. The sector shown in FIGURE 1 can be taken as typical of other radially outer and radially inner sectors as indicated in FIGURE 2, and it should be noted that the cylindrical surfaces 4 and 5 are common to the next adjacent vertical edges of the sectors of sheets. 'Some of the support beams for the adjacent sheet sectors are indicated in FIGURE 1, the radially inner beam of the adjacent outer sector being denoted 7' and the radially outer beam of the adjacent inner sector being denoted 6'.

It will be seen that the use of a small angle of inclination between the upper and lower sheets, for example, as shown, this angle is approximately 30, permits a large radial spacing of support beams 6, 7 to be achieved so reducing the total length and cost of beams in the tower.

Since the cylindrical surfaces 4, 5 containing the vertical edges of the sheets are concentric with the base of the tower, there is no need to pack or blank areas of irregular shape, such as arise when the surfaces containing the vertical edges of the sheets are not concentric.

As indicated by chain lines in FIGURE 1, bolts 11, 12 pass through each pack of fifteen sheets at the top of 3 each sheet nearthe vertical edges and bolts 13 pass through each sheet near the bottom at approximately midlength.

An annular asbestos-cement skirt 18 depends from the lower periphery of the shell 1 and an annular blanking sheet 19 is positioned closely adjacent the radially outermost upper layer of sheets 2 (FIGURE 3). Immediately adjacent the radially innermost row of columns 9' a vertical blanking cylinder 20 extends from just below slats 14 to a rim lying below the normal water level 21 (indicated as a, broken line in FIGURE 3).

We claim:

1. A generally circular cooling tower for liquids comprising a support structure including two concentric rings of beams, a lower layer of upright packing sheets with opposite ends of the sheets supported on said beams, and an upper layer of upright packing sheets supported on the sheets of the lower layer, radially inner ends of the sheets of both layers lying on a first imaginary cylindrical surface and radially outer ends of the sheets of both layers lying on a second imaginary cylindrical surface, the sheets of the lower layer lying at the same angle to imaginary radial lines as the sheets of the upper layer but in the opposite sense, and each of the sheets being of substantially the same length spanwise of the beams.

2. A circular cooling tower for liquids comprising annular layers of substantially upright sheets, and a supporting structure on which one layer of the sheets rests, the sheets of the next adjacent layer thereabove resting on and being skewed at an angle of in relation to the sheets of the saidvone layer, the'sheets of said one layer lying at an angle of 15 to imaginary radial planes and the sheets of the next adjacent layer lying at an angle of 15 in the opposite sense respective to said imaginary radial planes.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 594,440 11/1897 Stocker et a1 261 1,142,809 6/1915 Grace 26-1 2,759,719 8/1956 Odenthal 261 3,262,682 7/1966 Bredberg 261---ll2 FOREIGN PATENTS 57 1.5 10 8/1945 Great Britain. 875,611 8/1961 Great Britain.

HARRY B. THORNTON, Primary Examiner.

0 TIM R. MILES, Assistant Examiner. 

